December is normally one of the busiest months of the year for Austin restaurants and bars.

Holiday parties.

Office gatherings.

Christmas dinners.

New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Restaurants packed with people.

Bars packed even more.

December 2020 was nothing like that.

Instead, Austin entered the holidays with restaurants and bars trying to survive another round of COVID restrictions.

By the end of the month, Austin bars and restaurants faced new nighttime restrictions. Beginning New Year’s Eve, businesses were required to stop on-site service at 10:30 p.m., with the restrictions continuing into the first days of January.

For a city famous for late-night food and drinks, that was a major change.

But Austin’s restaurants had already become remarkably creative.

Takeout holiday meals became increasingly important.

Restaurants that normally depended on dining-room traffic were creating family-sized packages and special holiday menus.

Instead of making reservations for Christmas dinner, customers could pick up a meal and celebrate at home.

That wasn’t necessarily what anybody wanted.

But it was what 2020 required.

Restaurants were also continuing to open new concepts.

P. Terry’s expanded outside Austin with its first New Braunfels location in December, while other businesses experimented with ghost kitchens and delivery-focused concepts.

Even in one of the worst years imaginable for the hospitality industry, Austin’s food culture continued expanding.

That might be the most surprising part of looking back at December 2020.

Businesses were still taking risks.

Chefs were still creating menus.

Restaurants were still opening.

And customers were still looking for something that felt normal.

The holiday season also emphasized the importance of Austin’s local restaurant community.

The pandemic had made it obvious that a restaurant wasn’t simply a building where food was served.

It supported cooks.

Servers.

Bartenders.

Delivery drivers.

Suppliers.

Farmers.

Musicians.

Event workers.

And countless other people.

When restaurants struggled, the impact spread throughout the city.

Austin customers responded by ordering takeout, purchasing gift cards, buying merchandise and supporting restaurants whenever they could.

December therefore became a month of both uncertainty and loyalty.

People couldn’t celebrate the holidays the way they normally did.

But they could still order barbecue.

They could still pick up tacos.

They could still grab cocktails where permitted.

They could still support their favorite neighborhood restaurant.

And they could still tip the people working through one of the strangest holiday seasons in memory.

As New Year’s Eve approached, Austin looked toward 2021 without really knowing what was coming.

The vaccines were beginning to offer hope.

But the pandemic was still very much present.

The city wasn’t back.

The restaurants weren’t back.

The bars certainly weren’t back.

But Austin’s food scene had survived four extremely difficult seasons.

That was something.

December 2020 wasn’t the end of the pandemic.

It wasn’t the beginning of the recovery.

It was the strange middle ground between the two.

Austin had learned how to live differently.

And the lessons of 2020 would influence the city’s restaurants for years to come.

Happy holidays. Be safe yo.